Definition of "gander"

Old Mother Goose / When she wanted to wander / Would ride through the air / On a very fine gander.

1916, Blanche Fisher Wright, The Original Mother Goose

Marta's gander was a magnificent snow-white bird: the object of terror to foxes, children and dogs. She had reared him as a gosling; and whenever he approached, he would let fly a low contented burble and sidle his neck around her thighs.

1988, Bruce Chatwin, Utz, London: Jonathan Cape; republished London: Vintage Books, 2005, page 50

As well as the church and its sexton, the market house is worth a gander, while the hop fields and orchards are "reminding one of Kent", for we are in another "Garden of England".

2022 August 24, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: the Cotswold Line: Ledbury”, in RAIL, number 964, page 61